Take a look in the social media mirror before casting the first snowball
OTTAWA—Doug Ford fascinates me. Maybe I am a COVID long hauler, and I am suffering some sort of pandemic-induced delusion. Maybe my Atlantic-Canadian, Red Tory soul is opening to Ontario populist Tories. Maybe I was blind all along or maybe I just need something different to write about. Who knows? You be the judge. Where […]
Anti-vaxxers are doing no one any good
KAMOURASKA, QUE.—A friend of mine recently posted the following note on Facebook: “I phoned my cousin on Boxing Day to wish her a belated Merry Christmas. The exhausted voice at the other end of the line politely accepted my pitiful attempt at good cheer. As a Quebec public health nurse, she had been working straight […]
Cowardly Canadian leaders point fingers at the unvaccinated
CALGARY—Imagine a Black woman who writes about, and advocates against, inequities, who rails against injustice, with an emphasis on the Black experience siding with the anti-vaxxers she cussed only a few months prior. But here we are. Politics makes for strange bedfellows. On Jan. 11, Quebec Premier François Legault announced a tax on the unvaccinated […]
Taxing anti-vaxxers ‘controversial,’ but will help vaccinate more Quebecers and could help Legault’s October re-election bid, say some pollsters
Quebec Premier François Legault’s decision to tax anti-vaxxers is “controversial,” but it will help vaccinate more Quebecers and will assist the Quebec premier in his October re-election campaign, say some pollsters. “To be blunt, he has zero risk from this in Quebec,” said Ekos president Frank Graves, in an interview with The Hill Times. “It’s nothing […]
Vax tax, or not to vax tax, that is the question
OTTAWA—To vax tax, or not to vax tax, that is the question. Once again, the Government of Quebec appears to be at the head of the pack when it comes to new public health policies. Whether the proposed vax tax is actually brought to fruition remains to be seen. Reaction to the tax proposal ranges […]
Voices of reason needed in Bill 21 debate
OTTAWA—To get involved or not to get involved in Bill 21 in Quebec—if you are from outside Quebec. That takes some serious consideration. It is clear law, in the Act Respecting the Laicity of the State. There are lots of slogans like: if you disagree, speak up, don’t look the other way. So one’s initial […]
The politics of language and the Quebec premier’s quest to revive hockey
Language is “humanity’s greatest invention” but with it came controversy and the two are never far apart in either lexicon or politics. Their long-standing relationship makes them lovers of some familiarity and today, language is politics and is often a matter of deep anguish. This is the essential collegial familiarity in our understanding of Canadian […]
A Grade 3 teacher and the children of Chelsea spark promising movement to bring down Bill 21
CHELSEA, QUE.— Standing in an ice-covered parking lot outside the office of Gatineau’s CAQ MNA, Robert Bussière, and listening to several protest speeches in French and English doesn’t seem like a pleasant way to spend a lunch hour. But things are not always as they seem. For one thing there were the kids, lots of them, […]
It’s not the first time a government tried to restrict what people can wear
OTTAWA—Elementary school teacher Fatemeh Anvari was forced out of her classroom in Chelsea because she wears a hijab, thanks to Bill 21 which rules that civil servants not wear any religious symbols. Apparently, this is in the name of secularism, but let’s be real. It’s in the name of racism if it targets a certain […]
Investment in the North is investment in reconciliation
For decades, the Northwest Territories has been playing catch up to southern Canada. There are economic and social challenges that affect our territory and residents in ways that our neighbours south of the 60th parallel take for granted: basic infrastructure like roads, broadband, cleaner sources of energy, and affordable housing. A recent discussion paper from […]
